105 ON AND OFF THE: A VENUE: UNDER THE CHILDREN'S CHRISTMAS TREE. W E now bring þ.. you the toy , '> headlines as of this -V// i. ,g -' .. hour. H uJa hoops . "<_ -2:_,' are back (about $2 v a".o!:."' ''. ..!.::. ....- _# al l over town ) , hut J ___a /"" Batman items are fading fast, and monster and spy gear are a1] but forgotten. \Var toys-un- like war itself, unfortunately-are also last year's thing. Some philosophers in the toy Jndustry blame this slump on parents' finally catching on to the fact that the booby-trap explosions and the screaming of missiles in the distance were not the sounds of some card-table war but echoes of real hattles and, not wanting to be reminded of this confounding truth, touting the kids off toy counters where the predomlnant color was camouflage. Stuck with all those jeep and rifle dies, the toymakers' forces were in temporary disarray, but they have hastily regrouped. Taking note of the numerous best-sellers and mOVles dealing with animals-especially wild ones-they are converting the jeeps into safari trucks and the M-16s into big-game rifles. So now everybody under fifteen is being dispatched to the jungles of Africa-not an area that poses questions of troubling ignificance to rnost toy purchasers just at the mo- Inent. "Dear old Africa!" is what Poly- nesia, Doctor Dolittle's parrot, called it when she landed there with the good Doctor from Puddlehy-on-the- Marsh. And when the toy safaris rende7vous in the thornbush this season, whose tall black hat will rise over the polyure- thane horizon and who wil1 amble for- ward on his trusty giraffe to welcome them but Doctor l)ohttle, they pre- sume? Stuffed plastic versions of the Doctor and his friends, plus Doctor DolittJe games, coloring sets, sewing kits, and the rest of it-two hundred licensed items to date-are rap i d I y overrunning the toy scene. So far, however, we haven't heard any men- tlon of a doll or other representatJon of that unhapp} AfrJcan Prince Bumpo, who, as you may remember from Hugh Lofting's original "The Story of Doc- tor Dolittle," wanted above all things on earth to have his black face turned into a white one, so that he would be loved instead of reJected, and who freed Doctor Dolittle from the royal jai1 for accornplishing this feat. "When ] oh n J)olittlc lent hirn a little looking- gL-lSS to see hin1self in, he sang for JOY and began dancJng around the pnson," ha ving discovered that his face "had turned as white as snow, and his eyes, which had been mud-colored, were a manly gray! " No, we couldn't find Bumpo anywhere. Those who miss him will perhaps be interested in a curious table game we did run across, called Clean Sweep ($5 at )'. A. O. Schwarz), which involves small plastic brooms, a tiny trash can, and a h un- dred tiny pieces of plastic debris, half of them white and the other half red, blue, green, or yellow. In the course of the game, according to the directions that come with it, all players "rush to sweep the 'Good' white litter into their own corner with their brooms, at the same time trying to sweep the 'Bad' colored litter into someone else's cor- ner." "The white litter is 'Good' lit- ter ," the instructions add, in heavy black type. "The colored litter is 'Bad' litter and is counted against you." Clean Sweep is manufactured in Min- neapolis, where people are apparently rather out of touch. The "official" Doctor Dolittle doll manages to look quite a bit like a ro- bust Rex Harrison-who, it ma) have come to your attention, plays the role in the mOVJe that is responsible for much of this back-to-the-jungle hoopla. Two feet tall, the toy Dolittle has floppy legs, a kapok-stuffed body, and a vinyl head, and costs $13.95 at Schwarz. Naturally, he comes wearing a frock coat, a plaid vest, a flowing tie, and a top hat. The hat, coat, and vest are removable, but we have a feeling the l)octor wouldn't take kind- ly to such indignity. Pull the magic ring at the back of his neck and he says, "If asked to sing in hippopotamus, I'd say why not-a-mus," or something of the sort. (He has a repertoire of ten such remarks.) This commercial hero of the hour would look qUJte at home among the collections of stuffed animals that teen-age gJrls often accumulate, or he might please a little boy who would lIke to drag a doll around without be- ing teased. The hoy could claim he was studying to be a vet. The presumptive vet might also Eke the Doctor Dohttle Medical Play Set-a cardboard medi- cal case fitted out with toy parapher- nalia ( a plastic stethoscope, tongue depressors, candy pills, and so on), together with plastic versions of c;ix members of the Doctor'" animal en- tourage to practice on. Gimbel's has this for $1.88. Between patJents, the child could playa recording of fourteen songs taken from the sound track of the movie, which wouldn't be terrihly hard on the ears of Father and Mother, although they might wonder for a · I -rRAVf:L (SVRfAV : : t -4. 1 ' I . '" .t': -:: III Þ'-_ _ ,- \. '(1 .. - ONLY r 00 MORE D\YS Tø '-fET AWÞ.v XMA5 - j ( A.tAtt I 'Ë /' 7) "'W'